Visual Content Marketing Is Your Secret Weapon

Visual Content Marketing Is Your Secret Weapon

Visual content marketing uses the power of design to present content in a format that’s attractive, stimulating and engaging. It makes it easier for your audience to digest the information you’re giving them and piques their interest instantly. Put simply, visual content is highly shareable and grabs your audience’s attention.

Want to form deeper connections with your customers? Visual content can help—a lot.

In fact, a 2014 MIT study that appeared in the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics revealed that the human brain can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds!

“We often create visuals from scratch because stock photos do not always make the content stand out. Great copy demands equally great visuals,” says Martin Ravva, Creative Head at ZIRCA. “When we create custom visual content, we are in complete control of the style and mood, and what the visual needs to communicate to the audience.”

“Creating a visual that matches a brand’s colors and guidelines is important, but it’s also an uphill task”, Ravva adds. The reason for this is that some brand colors do not match the mood that the content demands. In such scenarios, it’s the designer’s job to ensure there’s a perfect balance between a brand’s colors and the mood of the custom visuals.

“At ZIRCA, we’re extremely careful when picking colors for the custom visuals we create because every visual produced takes into account people’s attention spans,” Ravva says. “For example, a poster can use vibrant colors because people take less time to read one. Compare this to an infographic that requires a reader to engage for a longer period of time. Plus, an infographic contains more statistics and text. So the colors of an infographic need to be easy on the eyes. We therefore create multiple options using different color palettes, fonts and layouts to ensure the visual is communicating to the audience in the most effective way possible.”

Types of visual content you can use to capture and engage your audience

If you’re getting started with your content marketing campaign, it’s important to know which types of visual content you could use to engage and inspire your audience.

Infographics
Don’t underestimate the impact a great layout and design can have on your audience’s understanding of complex data and statistics. Even the most mundane statistics can be brought to life when conveyed as a stunning infographic that tells a story.

Videos
A great video demonstrates that you’re prepared to go the extra mile to enhance your content marketing strategy. There are different types of videos you can create for your campaigns depending on your marketing objectives: animated explainer videos, customer testimonials, how-to videos, etc. Just ensure the videos reflect the brand’s style and tonality.

Memes
Memes are commonly known as images accompanied by humorous captions. They’re easy to create and quirky. Again, it’s critical to first evaluate whether memes are appropriate for your brand’s niche and audience. Memes are a great way to make people laugh and build a community around your brand.

Images
Content overload coupled with diminishing attention spans makes big blocks of text a huge turnoff for your audience. Instead, split up the text with some compelling images. It’s preferable to use images you’ve created. However, if you don’t have your own, you can easily create captivating, high-quality images using tools like Canva.

No matter which industry you’re working in, you can always use visual content to avoid making your content appear bland and unimaginative. However, ensure any piece of content is not badly designed otherwise you could end up doing more harm than good. Always put your audience at the heart of your content; substance and quality trumps design. Keep following our posts to know more about how you can make your content stand out from the crowd.